


tying faith between our teeth

by jugheadjones



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: AU - Fp gets everything he ever wanted, M/M, warning for f slur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 18:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17813252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jugheadjones/pseuds/jugheadjones
Summary: He’s physically thrown out, down the steps and onto his ass with a blow he’ll be feeling in his tailbone for weeks, and Senior spits on him like he’s a scrape on the floor of the bar, hits his chest and then his neck when the first one wasn’t enough. “Go to hell,” he snarls, and FP thinks about it, honestly.He goes to college instead.





	tying faith between our teeth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bisexualfpjones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualfpjones/gifts).



> written in response to briana's post: "all fp wanted to do was play football and go to college like he never wanted to be in a gang, be a criminal. this is why he’s so bad at it. in this essay i will.."

There’s a moment when Senior’s holding his arm at an angle, squeezing until the pain is all he can feel, that FP sees in sudden clarity his entire future when it snaps - the fluffy white cast he’d somehow have to pay for, Hiram offering to sign it and instead scrawling LOSER in hateful capital script, Fred gently going over the S in pen with a touch as gentle as a lover’s. This is only the short term. He sees too his own descent into drink, a future on the sidelines of his football team, passed over by scouts, broke and homeless, turning to his father’s life of crime, pushing his friends away - - it streams in his mind like a VHS tape on double speed, all the way up to his own hypothetical death, the death he’s wished on his father so many times - drunk and useless and alone.

He stands with his arm in his father’s grip and sees the rest of his life laid out before him - a short track, leading nowhere. The pressure increases and he screws his eyes tightly closed so that he doesn’t have to see the moment his dreams become redundant, the split-second his choice is made for him, the crush of his father’s absolute command over his future. The bone of his arm pinches, hurts, the muscles screaming under Forsythe Senior’s hand - until the day he died, his father’s barroom hands had the grip of a professional wrestler - and then Senior lets go abruptly and the pins-and-needles rush in all at once, a swarm of sharp, hot feeling that’s almost worse than the pain had been.

FP wrenches his throwing arm out of his father’s grip, cradles it, unbroken. Senior laughs in his face, drinks from his fear like it’s liquor, and for a moment FP almost does it anyway - joins the serpents just to get by, doesn’t bother to address what he knows even by now at sixteen is his drinking problem, never leaves his hometown. His two paths diverge in front of him and he trembles at the apex of it, hated and hating and hell-bent toward self-destruction.

Senior makes his choice for him, hits him and grabs him by the neck, hauls him toward the front door and slams him against the wood before he opens it. He’s physically thrown out, down the steps and onto his ass with a blow he’ll be feeling in his tailbone for weeks, and Senior spits on him like he’s a scrape on the floor of the bar, hits his chest with the spit and then spits on his neck when the first one wasn’t enough. “Go to hell, _faggot_ ,” he snarls, and FP thinks about it, honestly.

He goes to college instead.

* * *

Rent’s cheap in Riverdale, so his own trailer costs him a hundred-fifty a month for his senior year - everything he makes at his part-time job and sometimes more, often late or borrowed or begged for. All he owns is what he’d had the guts to crawl back and take from Senior’s trailer: his father had already ravaged and tossed his personal things, so this adds up to a half-dozen shirts and two pairs of jeans and a prayer of thanks that he keeps his football gear at school.

He gets pots and pans and a plate, bowl, glass, and cutlery from the thrift store - not the cleanest, but he’ll make do. He and Fred play house when they have the time, and as unfulfilling as it is in his filthy kitchen, it keeps his heart fortified against the hurt. If the trailer is their secret place he feels grateful for it, and though it can never last, it matters to him - himself and Fred and the faintest ghost of the life he could have if he was born someone else.

The very few things he owns makes it easy to pack up and move, and in between the months he can pay rent he surfs from couch to couch, does more than one stint in dead Oscar’s room and then pads down the hall back to Fred in the middle of the night when the ghosts get too loud.

The Andrews are good to him, though they can’t afford to be, and FP is learning that this is what makes good people good - that they give even and perhaps especially when it is beyond their means to do so. Artie sleeps permanently in the downstairs den now, surrounded by sterile white hospital machines and their reassuring medley of noise, pale and stoic and dignified, though dying, in a way Senior had never been alive.

Fred works thirteen hour days on the job site on weekends, six hours after school, and stumbles in exhausted long enough to shower and sleep. The stand for his guitar sits empty in the corner of his bedroom until Bunny sells it for four dollars in an enterprising garage sale - in addition to the duties of a full-time nurse and homemaker, Fred’s mother has begun earning money from home.

Bunny takes in mending from everyone else on the block, and the Andrews kitchen is always crowded with racks of other peoples clothes. FP sits with her sometimes and watches her sew, her hands neat and strong and clever with a stitch. He sorts buttons and gets his hair ruffled, listens to her talk and replies in turn, longing all the while to give her money he doesn’t have, to do something right by the woman who’s done more for him than his own father ever has, though he knows she’d never ask.

It’s spring now, exam time, and Fred has Friday evenings off - often they study together, but tonight FP is alone, trying to re-learn a year’s worth of physics for his Tuesday exam. He’d taken the U.S. Army aptitude test with most of his male classmates, but a football scholarship is what he has his eyes on. The exams will count, and for perhaps the first time in his life, he’s taking them seriously.

He picks up the phone when it rings and finds Fred’s voice on the other end.

“FP, get over here,” is all he says, his voice alive in a way FP hasn’t heard in a while. “There’s some fat envelope from the college for you, and you have to come to open it right now.”

FP had listed his address as the Andrews house on his applications - the further he kept correspondence from Forsythe Senior the better, and if they checked up on their star football player and found he lived in a respectable middle-class neighbourhood, so much the better. He bikes there now, fingers shaking and numb on the handlebars, not truly trusting himself not to wipe out and die before he ever got the chance to read his fate. But he makes it in one piece.

The large, heavy envelope is waiting for him on the counter, his full name on the front in crisp black lettering. Bunny and Fred are hovering and trying not to hover, looking at him with wide, bright eyes.

“Open it, FP,” urges Bunny excitedly, and he peels the envelope open with nerveless fingers, barely registering the pomp and circumstance of the cover design - bright school colours and an embossed golden crest. He’s shaking and he can feel the breath in his lungs, and it’s stupid because he’s never afraid, he’s never cared so much in his life.

He slides out a folder made of heavy cardstock, the stuff of wedding invitations, sealed with wax.

“Read it,” begs Fred, “Let him read,” scolds Bunny, and FP thinks bizarrely that he’s forgotten how, doesn’t even think he can get the folder open, but he does, and the letter is there, in his hand, all of his hopes and dreams, his ticket to everything.

He takes a deep breath and reads, the letters abruptly coming into focus for him.

“Dear Forsythe,” God, how he hates that name, God, how his heart is pounding - “Based upon the recommendation of Coach Kleats and the research done by Coach Dexter Howard, we are pleased to offer--”

Fred gasps. Bunny shrieks.

FP catches his breath and goes on.  “--pleased to offer you a full athletic scholarship to attend Midvale University-”

His voice breaks off around the lump in his throat, his eyes skating down the rest of the page, anxiously searching out a caveat, a catch, a line that announced the whole thing was a joke. Finally, finding none, he tears the paper from the folder and waves it in the air, turning to face his makeshift family with awe and joy glittering in his eyes.

“It’s a full scholarship. Food and board are included for all members of the football team, I just have to pay for my textbooks.” His voice comes out in a rush, the tears in his eyes threatening to spill over as Bunny and Fred almost knock each other over rushing to hug him.

“I’m going to college,” FP screams, “I’m going to college!” and the group leaps up and down, screaming and hugging one another, and FP screws his eyes shut and throws his arms around them both, sobbing unselfconsciously, his heart thudding so hard he feels like it’s going to break.

* * *

The summer melts slow and hot for them, two months in which everything is still certain and new all at once. They don’t talk about the impending fact that FP is moving five hours away, that this loving thing they’ve never defined will have to end or change. They only talk about how happy he’ll be, how often they’ll have to call, how Bunny and Fred will have to make it up to Midvale for a game or two and how they can’t wait for him to play Riverdale College so they can watch.

Oscar’s room has not changed since he died, but they offer it to him, free of rent. FP refuses at first - he has no intention of disturbing the room or living rent-free with a family that can barely afford to buy bread, but realizing his hundred-fifty a month could be going to the Andrews family instead of strangers, wheedles Bunny into letting him pay for it.

They spend his August rent on textbooks and dorm room supplies, a gleeful shopping trip that offers a welcome respite from the atmosphere of the house, where Artie’s health is taking a steady turn for the worse. FP insists he needs very little, but Bunny takes such delight in fussing over him and picking out things that he gives in without a fight.

His move-in date, circled on the calendar, draws ever nearer. Bunny insists on driving him down and helping him settle into his dorm, makes a reservation to have dinner with him before making the drive home. Fred will stay in Riverdale, as neither of them wants to leave Artie alone. Again, FP protests weakly, but the plans have been made for him, and the gesture is so inexplicably soothing that it moves him almost to tears. He’s always done everything alone.

August gets hotter and longer and then inches slowly into September. On his last week with the Andrews, Fred emerges from the den and finds FP smoking on the back porch.

“Can you go see my dad?” he asks, joining FP quietly at the rail. The sun has turned his hair lighter, bleaching highlights into the dark brown. He has an awful tan at his neck and shoulders from the job site. Only the possibility of Bunny watching from the kitchen window keeps FP from kissing them. “He said he wants to talk to you.”

Their bad blood has long since receded, but FP’s still nervous stepping into Artie’s room, as nervous as he’d been opening his acceptance letter. As weak as Artie is, FP still feels smaller, shying from his fatherly dignity and turning his shoulders in on instinct. But Artie only reaches for his hand like they’re friends, waits until FP’s closed his palm around his fragile grip on the blankets.

“I hear you’re going to college, FP.” Artie says softly, turning to look at him with faded brown eyes. They’re Fred’s eyes, and FP feels his heart jump.

“Yessir,” he replies dutifully.

“Is that a football scholarship?”

“Yessir.”

“You have to keep your grades up for that. Make sure you study too.” FP looks at Artie’s face and is astonished to see him smiling, his once-stern expression radiating only warmth and a well-hidden regret. FP wonders if he wishes Fred was going. “But enjoy it. I loved college. You will too.”

The lump in his throat threatens to drown him. FP can only nod.

“Write to Fred.”

“I will.” Fp chokes out.

Artie’s grip is slackening on his, some of the strength receding from his hand. The light in his eyes is fading somewhat, as though he’s struggling to keep awake. Still, his tone is even and coherent. “You’re a good friend to him. I had a best friend like you once.”

FP presses his lips together so he won’t cry, and Artie seems to notice, turning FP’s hand in his and patting it gently.  The heart monitor beeps steadily.

“I’m happy,” Artie says at last, eyes closing. The heart monitor beeps on. “Proud of you.”

FP waits until he’s out of the house to break down.

* * *

Bunny hands him an envelope at breakfast on Monday, a bright blue card reading CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR GRADUATION! Inside is written in Artie’s slanted hand:

_FP,_

_Enjoy college! Love, Artie and Bernice_

The card houses a cheque for two hundred dollars. “This is from the two of us,” Bunny says. “But it was Artie’s idea.”

FP tries to hand the cheque back. “I can’t take it.”

Bunny takes it from his hand and kisses him lightly on the forehead. “You can and you will. You’ll need it. I’ll put it in the bank for you tonight.”

That’s the day Fred manages to get Hermione’s spare room for a few hours and they have long, uninterrupted goodbye sex on her purple duvet. Fleetwood Mac is on the stereo, and they lay quietly listening to it after, grateful for something to fill the silence.

_If I could_

_Maybe I'd give you my world_

_How can I_

_When you won't take it from me_

FP’s hand is lying on Fred’s chest, Fred takes it and laces their fingers together, brings it to his mouth and kisses it, eyes fixed on a point far beyond the ceiling.

“I wish we could stay like this forever,” he says quietly, so quietly FP’s not sure if he’s supposed to hear. “But I guess you don’t.”

FP rolls over, and Fred turns to look at him. He traces the line of Fred’s lips with his forefinger, the shaft of summer sunlight that falls on his cheek.

“I love you,” he says. “This doesn’t change that. It _will_ be like this forever. Because I’ll always love you.”

“I love you too,” Fred replies, big brown eyes boring into his heart, and FP feels a tug in his chest like nothing else in the world, all of his life’s wishes laid out bare before the person next to him, soft and open and naked and safe. “I’ve loved you my whole life.”

* * *

The car is loaded for him, his admissions letter packed in his bag with his school supplies. Bunny’s fitting an extra bag of groceries in the trunk- _just in case they don’t feed you right_ , she insists. This leaves him and Fred alone to the inadequate task of saying goodbye to a near-eighteen-year friendship.

“It should be you,” says FP as they stand in the hall together, the guilt he’s kept inside hitting him all at once, “It should be you. I’m so sorry.”

“You deserve this, FP,” says Fred firmly, and kisses him on the cheek. “Keep in touch.”

FP squeezes his fingers and kisses him back, on the mouth this time, and somehow it feels like a beginning instead of an end, like everything’s gone right and is starting over again.

* * *

The town has never felt so small than when they drive out of it for the final time, past the shops on main street and the bottling plant, past the trailer park and the drive-in and the Bijou, past the schools and factories and stores and bowling alley and arcade.

He starts to cry and hides his face against the window, his gasping breaths mottling the glass.

“It’s okay, honey,” Bunny says, and her fingers find his hair. “I cried when I left the first time, too.”

* * *

College is confusing and frightening and exhilarating all at once.

The freedom and anonymity are so blissful that he almost cries, shaking sometimes when he walks on campus with the sheer joy of being freed from his father’s overbearing presence. He can breathe for the first time in years and the air feels fresher here - there’s no smell of maple, nothing but an open breeze. If his teammates notice that he avoids the maple syrup at the breakfast buffet, they don’t mention it.

Yet all the newness is scary. Football is the only familiar thing to him in this unknown terrain and he clings to it, puts his all into practices and games and team camaraderie. School is his second priority - he needs certain grades to maintain his scholarship, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t make them. He struggles, and he doubts himself, but he _works_ , lives in the library between classes, spends late nights pouring over textbooks and game plays in his bed, rewarding himself with the cases of beer he keeps tucked under his bed, bought with his first ever fake ID.

He’s rewarded with a string of B’s and C’s that shock him - he’d assumed he’d be playing catch-up from years of neglecting homework, worse, had assumed that he really was stupid, a lost cause. Better than the marks, however, is the affirmation from professors when he talks in class, rewarding him with: “that’s a good thought,” or, “good point, Forsythe”, and he glows.

What strikes him the most about college is how much Fred would enjoy it - he can’t see students camped out in sleeping bags in the library or chasing frisbees on the quad without a pang of how funny Fred would find it all, thinks of him achingly in the gold-green rustle of leaves and the spreading ivy on the old stone walls, when the leaves begin to turn golden and amber and the sun gets bigger and more orange in the sky. He calls him as often as possible, writes long wobbly letters on the weekends, the first he’s ever written. He finds a part-time job at the campus library so he can get by and saves some of his paychecks every week for stamps and long-distance phone calls.

Work, football, and school leave no time for a social life, but a sparse handful of friends come incidentally - his football teammates, his roommate's friends, the people who sit closest to him in class or who nod gratefully when he gets the nerve up to ask questions. One of the boys in his Economics seminar wears pink-and-rainbow buttons on his backpack and attends Wednesday meetings on the upstairs floor of the student centre. FP speaks to him nervously and obsessively, as though everything in his life hinges on being liked by this boy. Fortunately, the Economics boy - Ethan is his name - smiles back at him.

On Halloween, he follows his roommate to a party dressed as Ash from the Evil Dead, meets a lot of Ethan’s friends, downs a keg and outs himself to a room of strangers. He wakes up in the campus observation room at some unidentifiable hour the next morning, sick and dehydrated with his pulse beating in his ears, too dizzy to move his head with a headache drilling behind his eye.

One of his football teammates is there - FP’s touched beyond his own understanding to find out that the guy had carried him there and stayed with him. “Dude,” the player says, still half in costume, wary and impressed, “that was epic. You can _drink._ ”

He signs up for two meetings the following week. One is the discreet campus branch of Alcoholics Anonymous. The other, which he chickens out before attending but inevitably keeps his name on the list anyways, is for students who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or questioning.

* * *

When Artie dies he takes the train home, calls it a family crisis and doesn’t hesitate to leave his classes. His coach and all the professors he speaks to offer heartfelt sympathy and tell him he can make up the work. He heads back to Riverdale with the inevitable deadline of his next football game, but it seems less important all of a sudden, all of this secondary to Fred.

Fred’s waiting for him at the train station, older and thinner than the summer, but he falls into FP’s arms like no time had passed at all and sobs there in public, cries helplessly like a little kid until FP picks him up and carries him to the station bathroom, mopping his face off with the hem of his shirt and letting Fred’s head fall to his stomach, cushioning him against the sobs.

FP drives his friend’s car home and Fred holds his hand the whole way there, knuckles white around his grip, vibrating like FP’s hand is the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

The town looks smaller than ever.

They fit together like puzzle pieces, the way they always have. They don’t bother with the facade of separate bedrooms this time - he holds Fred so tightly in bed at night that Fred’s curled hand finds a permanent home between his ribs, his cheek against his neck, their legs wrapped together. He moves back in with the Andrews for two weeks to help with funeral arrangements - Bunny frets about his classes, but FP insists he can do schoolwork at home. (The Andrews house remains _home_ for him, even now.)

On good days Fred asks about his classes, smiles at his stories, tries his best to help with FP’s English 101 at the kitchen table and the limbo space they’re living in feels right and strong. On bad days Fred’s everything from irritable to shattered and all FP can do is be there.

“Freshman fifteen,” Fred teases him in bed at night, tracing FP’s stockier frame with a finger. Rigorous football training combined with finally having enough to eat for the first time in eighteen years means FP’s filled out considerably - he can feel himself being stronger, broader, and it makes him feel good that it had come at this time, that he was stronger when Fred needed him to be.

Forsythe Senior shows up to Artie’s funeral and causes a ruckus and FP looks at him for the first time for what he is - pathetic and drunk and set in his ways, small and meaningless and coiled with nothing more than hate and misery. He holds Fred’s hand in plain sight of his father and doesn’t look at him once.

Senior gets escorted out and he doesn’t see him again for the rest of his life. 

Fred promises him that he’ll visit to watch him play football. Bunny overhears and insists on the spot that Fred take the last week of the month off and drive up to see FP. Fred resists, and she calls the train station and threatens to buy a ticket. Fred brings up work - she calls his foreman and insists her son needs the time off.

All three of them are smiling when she hangs up the phone.

* * *

The morning Fred is due to arrive FP spends an hour choosing his clothes, brushes his hair just right and then musses it up again, shaves carefully and checks his watch and paces his dorm until the tell-tale blast of Fred’s horn issues up from his open window. In the six days he’s there Fred goes from subdued and broken to a very close approximation of his old self - happy-go-lucky and quick with a joke, burning with some soft inner light that FP wants to peel out of him and hang above his bed. FP buys him a college sweater on a whim and he looks untouchable in it - it brings out the brown of his eyes and hair, cheeks flushed above the collar, his little frame drowned in the expensive fabric. As FP had expected, he fits into the campus as if he belongs there.

They win the big game, Fred sitting front and centre and cheering the way he used to in high school. They hit three after-parties and end up necking in Fred’s car, laying down in the backseat away from prying eyes. FP hasn’t touched a drink since Halloween, but he feels drunk and high all at once.

FP takes him to the campus bar and introduces him to his friends - Ethan and Ethan’s boyfriend, a handful of people from class, another football player. People flock to Fred and by the time he leaves FP has a half-dozen new friends, all fun-loving and loud. They do an abysmal job of trivia and end the evening with a midnight dive off the pier into the frigid water, laughing like they’ve been best friends for years. Fred sits in classes with him and even puts his hand up once or twice, thrilled during FP’s American History lectures, insightful in English 101, and shockingly poor at Chemistry 100.

“You understand this?” he whispers in FP’s ear, jaw hanging in awe, and FP’s heart feels soft and golden and proud.

In Organic Chemistry a girl passes her number three rows down to him and Fred laughs out loud and slides it in his pocket. FP leaves him in the library during a seminar and comes back to find him adorably engrossed in a stack of books, the top of which is titled _New Queer Cinema._

His heart skips a beat.

They haven’t named it, this thing between them that’s going on eighteen years strong, necking in the car and on his dorm bed, on Hermione’s purple duvet, sex and kisses and fights and apologies and holding hands under the table in their hometown. They’ve said _I love you_ countless times but they’ve never argued for what that needs to mean. Truth be told, FP’s always been scared of bringing it up. But this time it’s Fred who starts it, one of their four-am treks out to get french fries, talking and laughing and too drunk on each others’ presence to go to sleep.

“Are you seeing anyone?” Fred asks, both of them leaning on the counter. Then quickly: “Because if you are, I wouldn’t mind, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“You wouldn’t mind?” FP asks slowly.

Fred swallows and grins nervously. “Well, my heart would be broken into ten million pieces, if that’s what you mean. But if it’s easier for you to be unattached while you’re here…” He lets it trail off. “I mean, I don’t own you. I don’t mind if you do what feels good.”

“You wanna know what feels good?” FP reaches out and pinches Fred on his bony ass, and Fred laughs and throws a french fry at him.

He lowers his voice. “I mean it. I can just be your best friend from back home if you want.”

FP’s startled by the decisiveness that overtakes his tone when he replies, a confidence he didn’t know he had in him. “No. I love you. You’ll never just be my best friend from back home.”

The next day he takes Fred back to the campus bar and says to the same people _this is my boyfriend, Fred,_ and saying it is like cracking his ribs open and taking out every part of him and putting it out in front of them and all they do is smile and grin and say _that’s awesome_ and _you’re so cute together_ and breathing is suddenly like swallowing the sweetest air imaginable.

Once when his roommate’s out all night they have the kind of dizzyingly good sex that leaves him breathless and damp with sweat, Fred nestled asleep on his chest after, heavy and warm. FP holds him all night, reeling with gratitude, and in the morning they cuddle in bed all day, listening to the campus radio and making each other laugh about anything and everything.

They kiss so many times when Fred has to say goodbye and drive back that FP’s lips are chapped afterward.

He starts planning Fred’s next visit immediately.

* * *

The rest of his first year unspools at a whirlwind pace - in a stroke of unusual courage he calls Fred and asks him to come down in time for a mixer Ethan’s organization is throwing, then panics all weekend about whether or not he did the right thing. Fred shows up and they have a terrific time and that cinches it - things are all right. Things might be all right forever.

After that, they visit more and more frequently, at least every month, if only for a weekend when their schedules don’t line up. Fred’s whole life is work when he’s not with FP, so visits are giddy freedom - he looks younger and happier the instant his foot hits campus, eyes bright and healthy. The visits are the happiest part of FP’s year - they play frisbee and wander and laugh, sneak kisses in the library, eat meals at midnight, and hold hands at gay socials

The letter comes that his scholarship is renewed in April, and they drive down to the beach to celebrate, hands clasped in between the leather seats of Fred’s car.

* * *

“Why don’t you move in together?” Bunny asks when the question of housing comes up for next year - FP’s scholarship only meant dorm space for a year, and they were discussing other options at the kitchen table on his last visit before exams. Fred turns to look at her, brow furrowed.

“I move down there?”

“Why not?” Bunny asks, folding a dishtowel. The stereo is on, the windows open, the spring breeze floating in the room. “You have quite a bit saved up, and I can help pay your rent.”

“But what about you, Mom?”

“I can visit you if you miss me.”

“I won’t leave you to live here all alone,” says Fred firmly, and no amount of his mother’s cajoling will change his mind. But when FP drives back the phone calls from Bunny start: _I have an old TV you can take if you like_ , and then _someone at church is getting rid of their futon, wouldn’t it be nice to have for your new place?_ and FP has a feeling it’s only a matter of time before she stuffs her son on the moving truck with all the furniture and lets it happen from there.

* * *

“Do you really want Fred to move?” FP asks one summer afternoon, as they’re standing on the porch overlooking the garden. “I thought you’d miss him.”

Bunny shakes her head. “I miss him now. The person he used to be.” Her thumb finds the curls at the back of FP’s scalp, caresses them. “He’s so happy when he’s with you. I want him to be that happy all the time.”

FP can’t speak suddenly, a lump in his throat. Bunny keeps rubbing her thumb over the back of his neck.

“Besides,” she says, “We’ll see each other. Look how often you two see each other.”

FP nods, his hands suddenly shaking. “I don’t want to push him,” he manages, his voice too high and tight.

“We’ll make it happen,” says Bunny calmly, and keeps running her hand through his curls. “Wait and see.”

* * *

In the summer FP applies for one of the discounted apartments close to campus, and Bunny co-signs the application. Second-year means more coursework - he’ll have to declare his major, too, and that scares him, but he has time. His approval comes in the mail and Bunny makes the move happen with her own two hands - buys them things and orders the truck and co-signs the lease, sews yellow curtains and trails them to the poster store. They pack a moving truck with all of Fred’s things, including most of Bunny’s old furniture after she insists she had wanted to re-decorate the house and the best thing they could do was take it off her hands.

Bunny drives the truck fearlessly and they follow in the car, talking about _maybe_ and _one day_ \- maybe one day Fred will have the money to go to college too, maybe one day they’ll all move somewhere new where no one knows them, maybe one day they’ll have money saved up to do whatever the hell they like - some of the _one days_ are unsaid, a thumb brushing his ring finger, a hard thumping of his heart, Fred's pulse under his hand. Maybe, maybe, maybe. One day, one day, one day.

Their truck takes hours to unload: it’s more things than FP’s ever had in his life - boxes and bags and books and bedframes, plus everything in the car. Bunny has ideas about where everything should go inside and when two of FP’s teammates help them unload everything, he looks around it and in awe, realizes it looks like a home. A real home, the kind he never thought he’d have.

They go out for a hard-earned lunch, tearful but smiling, and Bunny kisses them both on both cheeks - not goodbye, she insists, not a goodbye kiss at all because they’ll see each other soon. At night they lay in their new bed together, Fred on FP’s chest, and FP counts the freckles running down the side of his neck, his perfect brown hair spread out on his bare skin, brushes a fallen eyelash off his cheek.

From here they can go anywhere, but for now, here will be enough.


End file.
